Another week, another milestone: The Dow added 87 points, or 0.7%, closing up for the week despite Friday’s hiccup. Barron’s Trader column notes this was the "fifth straight week of gains, as gauged by the Dow and S&P 500, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4%, its fourth weekly gain in the last five, to reach 2350."

The Bulls can point to Earnings, which continued to be excellent, a few notable exceptions aside. Guidance is where the Bears can rest their case.

No matter: another week pregnant with earnings, and quite a bit of economic data: NAPM , Construction Spending and ISM mid-week, Productivity and Factory Orders Thursday, then everyone’s favorite, Non Farm Payroll (tho Given the massive revisions NFP has seen, perhaps we should be putting less stock in these initial numbers).

• Seinfeld at the FOMC: Something about nothing also could describe the meeting of the FOMC. Nothing changed in terms of the target rate for federal funds, which has stood at 5 1/4% since last July. And the statement: a lotta yada, yada, yada.

• Barron’s Alan Abelson cites research by Merrill Lynch’s David Rosenberg regarding the recent "stabilization" in Housing. It turns out that the only thing which is stabilizing is inventory — but at extremely high levels (If no Barron’s go here)

• I haven’t read Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, the 3rd part of his Bush at War trilogy. It seems that every other person on my train is carrying the book.

• No cash = no inspiration = no rocket sauce: Jack Black schools all of you on the truth about piracy (save your emails, its a parody). JB & Kyle also have a new movie out: Tenacious D‘s The Pick of Destiny

That’s all from my corner of the North Shore of Long Island, where lots of rain and plenty of fallen leaves combine to make driving treacherous — and unlike Ice or Snow, ABS won’t help if you skid on wet leaves. Drive safe!

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

7 Responses to “Festival of even more Linkage!”

Barry,
Nouriel Roubinis blog from today (29oct06) is explosive if true. Some investigation required, but he thinks the gov made a mistake or massaged the auto prod numbers to get to a 1.6% gdp report…without those “mistakes” the reprt would have been close to 0.9%.
See his blog on right hand side of web site!http://www.rgemonitor.com/

ah, a fluke. They happen. A lot. Let me see if I have a complete list of pre-election flukes:

_March-ish: M3 is no longer relevant to greater transparency, goodbye.
_April-ish: MSM is chirping about “sell in May”
_May: Market dumps on schedule, but only moderately.
_July: Paulson is sworn in and 2 days later GS index is changed resulting in oil/gas freefall over the next 2 months
_August: Market unaccountably begins a 3 month tear despite dismal economic data
_September: No significant pullbacks, despite data. Just one of those things.
_October: BLS discovers that it lost 810,000 jobs, cash market continues to rise via remarkable behavior in the futures markets; when called on GDP, BEA sort of says that just maybe GDP was overblown by a third.
_November: Verdict in Saddam “trial” that ended in June(?) to be released 2 days before elections. The scheduling was announced in September but the Iraqis started to think that maybe it would fall behind schedule once they got into a difference of opinion with “us” earlier this week. Back on track now, apparently.

Have I left anything out? Will there be another fluke in the form of an OBL tape released either Nov 3 or 6? Of course not, The Manipulati are just a myth.

26% jump in motor vehicle production and overestimating GDP?!?!? I hope it was simply an honest mistake and it does not have any political or any Wall Street investment bank connections. (I can only imagine how much money big investment banks would lose if GDP was not overstated)

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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